Artificial intelligence is here and can improve our lives, but is it also stealing jobs? We discuss that, plus hear what one of Jeff’s students thought about the abortion process. Scientists have now confirmed that stars swallow planets, and Dallas gets hit with a ransomware attack. All that and more!
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Artificial intelligence is here and can improve our lives, but is it also stealing jobs? We discuss that, plus hear what one of Jeff’s students thought about the abortion process. Scientists have now confirmed that stars swallow planets, and Dallas gets hit with a ransomware attack. All that and more!
1. Topics
2. Additional Resources
3. Merchandise/Support the Show
4. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
5. Credits
This week, is AI a threat to your job, stars swallowing planets, a major city gets hit by ransomware, and somebody got coronated. Welcome to Subpar Talks. Hey everybody. Welcome to Subpar Talks, where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.
Chris:And I'm Chris.
Jeff:Thank you so much for joining us again. And as always, of course you know by this point what is coming. It is our standard disclaimer, listener discretion is advised. We like to curse from time to time. And depending on the episode, we will touch on some mature subject matter, and we inject our humor into a lot of this stuff. So if that doesn't set well with you, then perhaps this is not your type of podcast. But for everybody else, settle in because here we go with this week's topics.
Chris:Oh, you got something better to drink than I do.
Jeff:What do you got?
Chris:I just have water.
Jeff:Oh, well, water's good. It's healthier than what I got.
Chris:I probably need it. I don't drink enough water.
Jeff:Yeah. Um, no, I have a beer and, um, it's called the, the Salty Lady. It's outta Fort Worth. And it is, it's tart, like it's really tart, like sour, which really sounds disgusting, but it's good. Yeah.
Chris:Even though it's called salty?
Jeff:Yeah, it's got a bit of a salty kind of, I don't know if flavor's the right word. I'm a beer idiot. Like I don't know the different types and all that. I know what I like and what I don't like. I kind of like with that, with wine, like, I don't know. I know what I like and that's what I stick with.
Chris:Yeah, I don't, I don't know anything about either, honestly.
Jeff:So you know how there's a writer strike right now?
Chris:Yeah. I'm upset about it.
Jeff:Yeah. So I haven't really paid a bunch of attention to it. I know it's gonna screw up some shows or, or you know, luckily I feel backed up enough to where there's a bunch of stuff that I have to watch that I know is out there. It's already been filmed and so I don't have to worry about that. But stuff coming up, yeah, it's gonna mess things up. Yeah, I feel like that too. I, well, I'm watching enough stuff that's older also, or already out there. Yeah. So the reason I bring that up is I didn't really know what their demands are in negotiating new contracts. Uh, the union I'm talking about, I don't remember the name of the union, but one of their demands is that they want some consolation on ai. They want some protections against AI in this new contract that they're forming. And I thought that was interesting and pretty forward thinking really. It is. It's very interesting. But what does that mean? What kind of consolation would they get? Well, I don't really know, but I, I have no idea. But studios, it's like we've talked about before, like if corporations can make more money, they're gonna do it. So if they wouldn't have to pay a rider for something, And they could have a, a, you know, AI do it, then they might very well do it. So
Chris:yeah, I had not thought about that at all. That's, well that's, that's just another one of those things, you know, it seems like every time I hear about where AI is being used, I'm kind of shocked, amazed, impressed, all of that at the same time. Like, oh wow, that's cool. But yeah, you think about the, the kinds of jobs that could be eliminated by it, it's kind of scary too. And how is AI going to write like a human when it comes to writing shows? I don't know. I dunno. I mean, at this point anyway.
Jeff:Right? But who knows? And I don't know how long the contract's gonna be for, but what are we looking at five years down the road? When was the last rider strike? I remember that. Has that been like 10 years ago? So, A lot can happen over a decade.
Chris:Yeah, that was
Jeff:my guess. So I was thinking about your job or my job, do you feel threatened by AI at all? Have you thought
Chris:about it? So, very interesting you had asked that question because, uh, my boss just the other day got on and first of all, I don't typically do programming. I used to, but I, that's not really part of my job anymore. It could be at times, but doesn't really cross my path too much. Now other people that we have working for us, they do a fair amount of coding and so my boss. Was working with, uh, I don't remember what it's called. It's a, and, and I didn't even know that this was built into Edge, but Microsoft has built an AI tool into the Edge browser. Yeah. And that's what he was using. So my company, and, you know, we keep all of this as anonymous as possible, so I'm not gonna name names mm-hmm. But my company has a product and they have, uh, a programming language in that product. Mm-hmm. He asked the, the, the bot, the AI bot, if it would write a script to do this particular task, and it did it. Wow. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me, because this is not. I mean, first of all, if you pick a, a programming language, any programming language, it's not particularly surprising, I guess, that well, it is in a way that, that the AI tool could go out and write code for it, but then you've got the programming language that is then specific to a particular product. And because it's particular to our product, that just makes it more specific, more surprising that it would be able to generate that. Yeah. And that's, that's a little disturbing, I guess, in a way. Mm-hmm. Now, when you talk more about my job, my job is very customer interactive. You know, I'm on, I'm on calls, I'm writing emails, things like that. And, and they are specific to the product, their particular issues, things like that. Where I have questioned in the past, any fear I might have would be outsourcing as sending it somewhere else, particularly since it is, uh, remote anyway. I mean, my job is remote. It's not like I'm in front of these people, so mm-hmm. Why do they care where that person is now? It is gonna have to have good communication skills, english skills, things like that. So you'd have to kinda watch where are you outsourcing it to make sure you're not losing anything in that way. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I, I do wonder where this could go, and you're talking about the riders strike and, you know, if they negotiate a contract for five years from now, Holy shit, five years from now is a long time technologically, and who knows what could be popping up in that time. Yeah.
Jeff:So I thought that was really forward thinking of their, uh, union reps or their attorneys, whoever's negotiating, uh, maybe all of the above. But yeah, very forward thinking on their part. So I was thinking about my career, uh, teaching. I don't, I don't see how AI is a threat to what I'm doing in the classroom. Mm-hmm. But I also teach online courses, and I could see how that could play a role for sure, because you could, you could have AI write discussion questions and look for keywords and whether students answered it properly or not. Like you could set up rubrics inside of a learning management system and. You could have tests. I mean, it could write questions. I, I could foresee that it could be an issue there. I don't think we're talking about it anytime soon, but as you said, five years, 10 years down the road, who knows? Holy shit. So this is kind of changing the subject, but just thinking about being in the classroom. So the other day in class we got off on, well, I mean I, I brought it up cuz we were talking about the right to privacy and the Constitution, which used to include a woman's right to have an abortion, you know, up to a certain point used to, and there was a guy in there, I kid you not, and he is, he is definitely the product of the Texas public education system, specifically sex ed, because somebody was talking about the process of abortion and he said, oh no, I'm not making this up. He said, I thought they just pumped the woman's stomach.
Chris:Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me?
Jeff:I, yeah. It was one of those where did I hear him say that? Right. But then other people started laughing and I was like, holy hell. And I didn't wanna laugh cuz I felt bad for him. He didn't know. He's obviously, his parents haven't explained that babies aren't growing in a stomach and you don't abort one by pumping the stomach. I just, yeah, I couldn't believe it.
Chris:But how frightening is that? And that it was very, like you say, he's just an example of one of, yeah, one of how many, how many people are walking around like that?
Jeff:Oh, I know. And he's a pretty good student. It's not like he's just wandered in off the street, like he's pretty good student, but holy shit. It's amazing.
Chris:So how did that play out? Did you take him aside? What
Jeff:must
Chris:talk? Yeah.
Jeff:Uh, no. There were other, uh, especially the women in the class, they kind of set him straight and I felt bad for him because he, it was clear, he felt embarrassed and he says, well, that's just what I was told. Or, or something to that effect,
Chris:but Okay. I mean, that begs the question of so many other things, like, yeah. Where do you think babies come from? You know, how is this happening, a story? Are you having sex with their stomach? I mean, what's happening?
Jeff:I don't know. Uh, Yes. I had a lot of questions after that, but we kind of had to move on and I didn't wanna single him out, but damn, it's amazing. Did you have sex ed in school?
Chris:We had, uh, one, we had one, it wasn't even a class, it was a session and it was in, I want to say, I can't remember if it was fifth or sixth grade. Yeah. Where they separate the boys and girls and they show them a film. And there was like a discussion time after that, and that was it. But I mean, even from that, you know, you get enough from it that at least, at least you know, the base, the basics of what's happening. Right. I, I guess I can say that. Um, yeah. But. So this is embarrassing though. Honestly. I took, um, so the answer to your question besides that, no. We had to take a health class in ninth grade and I don't remember that. There was really, maybe there was, I don't really remember if there was specifically sex education as part of that health class, but my senior year in high school, I took an anatomy and physiology class and this was like, uh, an AP class. You know, college credit, these are people who, that sense, were even looking at going into medical field, all of that. Right? I learned some things in there when it came to, uh, well that anatomy and physiology and it, it was, you know, obviously it's not a sex ed class, but we did talk about reproductive system, things like that. And I learned things and I think this is not a required class. What if I hadn't taken that class? What if I didn't know what I know because of that? And there's people walking around that don't get that as, as basic knowledge.
Jeff:So the law in Texas is, um, I think it's up to the district. The school district does not have to have sex ed. Uh, if they do, then it has to be, uh, focused on abstinence. Like it has to teach abstinence only. So they don't teach proper methods of birth control or anything of that nature. So now that wasn't, when, that wasn't the law when we were in school, but it is now. I think it's been that for like the past 15, 20 years.
Chris:That's so ridiculous. I mean, I'm not against, I'm not against teaching abstinence. I'm against that being the only thing.
Jeff:Exactly. Yeah. So that student in my class, like if he's gone to public school and actually I know he has, he's gone to public school. Then wherever he went, they might not have even had anything. And it kind of sounds like that's the case
Chris:unless you missed that day. It's like, uh, thinking a woman swallows a watermelon. See she's got a watermelon grow in her stomach.
Jeff:Yeah. Time to pump it. Abort, abort. Speaking of swallowing,
Chris:Oh, here we go.
Jeff:I saw this on my feed a couple of days ago, but scientists have always theorized that what happens to planets is that they get swallowed up by a star, like the cycle of a star. It will, I think it becomes bigger and bigger and it just ends up swallowing the stuff around it, and then it eventually dies out. It, it burns out. Well, they've now confirmed that, uh, this is in the New York Times. Astronomers have witnessed a star gobbling up a planet, offering the first direct glimpse of a gnarly process called planetary engulfment that most likely awaits earth in the deep future
Chris:gnarly process.
Jeff:I know, I love the fact that the New York Times used gnarly. Scientist spotted a gas planet like Jupiter, but possibly larger as it was swallowed up by an aging sunlight star about 12,000 light years from Earth. Uh, let's see. Uh, this guy from NASA said, quote, this is the eventual fate of the earth. We are really seeing what the earth is going to run into 5 billion years from now. So billion with a
Chris:B?
Jeff:With a B. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I don't really need to worry about it. We got, I'm not too worried about it.
Chris:Yeah, that's where we sat on the other episode. I used to be worried as a kid that the sun was gonna burn out and it'd take me eight minutes to find out. Right. Yeah,
Jeff:I thought about that. So yeah, you can sleep easy. All right. Yeah. I
Chris:don't really still wanna be here while we're getting swallowed in a gnarly
Jeff:process. So I thought about that. I mean, who knows? Our humans, they won't be humans. No, it'll be something else. Right. How long have humans been around? Like 200,000 years. 250,000.
Chris:Yeah, but you gotta think if the sun continues getting bigger, then it's going to heat up here. I mean, never mind what we are doing when you talk about climate change and all of that, and I, mm-hmm. I wondered that too. Well, I wondered this before, but now I guess kind of saying it out loud, you know, the amount of time that we have to look at to measure differences in climate change can't be attributed to changes in, for example, the sun or our distance to the sun, because Right. That would be so gradual. Yeah. That we wouldn't be able to tell it in the amount of time we've measured it. But my point is, when you start looking over. Tens of thousands of years, another million years, multiple millions of years, before you even get to one of those billion, it would seem like Earth is going to become inhabitable. I would just expect, I mean, look at Mercury and Venus, you know, were they inhabited, you know, millions or billions of years ago, if the sun was smaller, they wouldn't have been as hot. Yeah. And and for that matter, if we look at the other planets now that are farther out in the solar system and go, well, Mars, for example, is too cold. It's solid, but it's too cold. Mm-hmm. And doesn't have an atmosphere, et cetera, et cetera, and then keep looking out. Those planets aren't inhabitable because they're too cold. But if the sun gets bigger, they're going to warm up. Do they then become inhabitable?
Jeff:Uh, maybe Mars would be a great place to live. I don't know. Yeah. So Mars doesn't have an atmosphere?
Chris:Um, I don't think so.
Jeff:I don't, I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it. So we'd have to walk around in space suits. All right.
Chris:I think that's true. Uh, Martian atmosphere is composed primarily of carbon dioxide. Well, I guess that, however, unlike Venus, the Mars atmosphere is very thin, subjecting the planet to a bombardment of cosmic rays and producing very little greenhouse effect. So I guess technically it has one, but very little.
Jeff:But we couldn't breathe it. I mean, we, we couldn't, yeah, for a few seconds. For a
Chris:second. Yeah.
Jeff:Wow. I remember hearing the Russians tried to land, well, they did land a spacecraft on Venus, but it was so hot, it just basically melted. Yes.
Chris:That was, yes, I remember hearing that. Yeah, that's, see, that's always been just fascinating to me. It was, it was kind of a, it's something I theorized about and, and when I say theorized, I'm talking about the kind of laying in bed just, Ooh, is this possible? Mm-hmm. Is wondering, you know, like, Hey, we're Mercury and Venus inhabited in the past? They're not inhabited now, and, and don't seem like there was any possibility of it. Mm-hmm. And Earth is just this quote unquote, you know, perfect habitation for us, but it can't stay that way. And so what if other planets became inhabitable by the sun expanding and it just kind of moves itself down the
Jeff:solar system. I've never thought about like Mercury or Venus being inhabitable. That's crazy to think about. Yeah. And then what else is out there that in a billion years or whatever, they're looking at earth and saying, Hmm, I wonder if anything used to live there.
Chris:Right, exactly. Poor bastards.
Jeff:I know it. It's kind of amazing to think that all we've been through, all we've accomplished this is gonna be wiped away. Can be
Chris:gone. Yep. Well, imagine, I mean saying that like if any other, you know, being is looking at us in the future, what are they gonna see? A burned up mess. Just like when we look at Mercury and Venus.
Jeff:Yeah, it's
Chris:true. And and are they gonna get here? Are they gonna, are they gonna come here and investigate or is it gonna be too hot? Just like Venus and they couldn't land anything here anyway,
Jeff:man. I think if I kept talking about this stuff, I would develop a pretty fatalistic attitude about a lot, lot of things kind of freaks you out. Yeah, no kidding. Like, what is it all for?
Chris:So did you see that the city of Dallas got hit by ransomware?
Jeff:Oh, I saw that headline. I don't know anything about it, but I did see the headline. Yeah. Yeah. So
Chris:I was reading some about it today, and this is the third day that it's been going on, which is Wow. Uh, surprising. Yeah. Surprising by itself that it, it could have been lasting this long, but there were links in this article. And the article that I was looking at was from two days ago. I just happened to see another headline that said it was entering, its, it was in its third day. Well, in this article from two days ago, they have links to the Dallas Police Department and the City of Dallas website. And what they claim two days ago is still true today. And that is that the Dallas Police Department website doesn't even come up. Whoa. Like it just sits there and spins. Yeah. And the City of Dallas website has a message on it that says, uh, the city is experiencing a service outage and is working to restore services. They've got other links on here, but it's clearly not their normal webpage. Wow. So there's been no, there is, um, basically an assumption of. This group called Royals who Okay. Is supposedly responsible for it, although they haven't, let's see. I don't think they have specifically claimed, no. They did claim responsibility. Okay. They sent a note to the city of Dallas and have claimed responsibility, and it is ransomware, but there's no nothing they could
Jeff:do to get rid of it.
Chris:Well, and there's nothing documented as to an amount of money that they're requesting. Apparently this, this group in the past has requested anywhere from one to 11 million. Wow. But it says the city of Dallas has yet to confirm whether the hackers have made any financial demands. But this is something that, that really shocked me, says there have been 29 reported cyber attacks targeting local governments in the US this year alone. Oh
Jeff:my. It's just, man. Well, I was gonna say, I remember, I remember Atlanta was hit by ransomware maybe 10 years ago, 15, uh, something like that. Really? Yeah. And that was the first I'd ever heard of a government entity being hit by it. But Wow. It's a lot more common than I thought. So what does this Royals group want? Like what is their thing?
Chris:Well, it says the city of Dallas has yet to confirm financial demands. That doesn't mean they haven't made any, so, I mean, I would assume that Yeah, they just want money. They said that they have a, that Royals group has a site on the dark web. And that investigating that there's nothing out there yet, quote unquote yet that has been leaked. Mm-hmm. Not like, you know, they got access to this data and are, are publishing it, but obviously that's a possibility.
Jeff:So I was just wondering if they're, are they political? Like do they have political motivations? Is it purely money? Are they just like to throw wrenches in things? Like, I don't know what their motivations. I don't know. And maybe we don't know. I mean,
Chris:some, sometimes, yeah. Throwing the wrench in things is enough. Well, not, I, I can't imagine that that's all they want. I'm sure they want money, but, mm-hmm. Yeah. That, that could certainly be enough,
Jeff:I guess if you could get millions of dollars outta doing something like this, you don't really need any other motivation. No. Like that's absolutely not want
Chris:money. Let me read this. This is the note that says if you are reading this, it means that your system were hit, your system were hit by Royal. Royal Ran, oh, ransomware, I guess. Okay, so this thing is cut off. You can't read the whole thing, but um, please contact us via, and they've got some stuff blurred out. In the meantime, let us explain this case. It may seem complicated, but it's not. Most likely what happened was you decided to save some money on your security, security, whatever, alas. As a result, your critical data is not only encrypted, but also copied from whatever. From there, it can be published online. Um, fortunately we got you covered. Royal offered you a unique deal for a modest royalty. Got it, got it. For our, something cut off covering you from reputational legal, financial, regulatory insurance risk. To put it simply, your files will be decrypted, your data restored and kept confidential. It said something, uh, the article said something about if people were responding to, um, phishing attempts, like mm-hmm. Hey, you're, you're being charged this amount of money, or something like that, and they responded to it somehow that, that could have helped to introduce the ransomware into the network. Yeah.
Jeff:So, yeah, I was wondering like somebody, oh, I don't know how all that works, but I do know clicking on some kind of phishing scheme in an email or something that will do it. It'll open the door. So who knows, some random employee could have fucked up and clicked on who knows what. Yep.
Chris:Wow. Um, well also said that 9 1 1 services have been disrupted. Now it did say, oh God, they're still working. But it's like people were having to the, the dispatch people were having to take stuff down by hand and they couldn't dispatch everything automatically like they need to. So I would assume that results in some delays.
Jeff:So if you're in Dallas, think twice about whether it's a real emergency. Do I really need to call 9 1
Chris:1? Or whether you want to have that massive meal.
Jeff:That's amazing. Yeah, man.
Chris:Scary. So, I mean, when you think about all the city services that that could impact, that's scary.
Jeff:Yeah. Right. It, it sure is. And I wonder who they have working on it. Surely. I mean, the local police, but the FBI is involved. The fbi, that's what I was gonna say. The fbi. Yeah. And man, and they might never find out who did it. They might never find out who did it at all. No, because, um, I read a book, really, really good book last year. It's called American Kingpin. It's about the guy who started the Silk Road. Do you know about that? On the dark web? Yeah. And they looked for him for years. And the way they caught him is right after the Silk Road started, right after it was launched. He went on some random message board somewhere and said, not on the dark web. This was just on regular internet. And he was trying to drum up publicity for the Silk Road website and said, Hey, have you guys heard about this? Whatever. And they tracked that down and got the IP address and all that, and that's how they found him. So if he had never done that, they might have never caught him in the first place. That's crazy. Yeah. So who knows with this, like, they might never even find out who did it. You know,
Chris:it's, it's been, I think we've talked about this before, but it, it's been a, this is a real concern to me is that I think that more terrorist activity is going to become cyber related as opposed to what we've seen in the past that's very physical of bombs and, you know, flying a plane into a building, things like that is if you can bring down services like this.
Jeff:Yeah. If you really wanna fuck up a society. Like you have some type of agenda then yeah, you could hack into computer systems like this. But I was thinking about grids like shut off electricity man. Yeah. You could really cause problems. I'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more.
Chris:I am too. I absolutely am. But yeah, you're right. If they were to hit electricity, water, and I'll tell you what I think is about worse than any of that is the financial system. Yeah. I mean if you were, if you were to hit banks in such a way that nobody's stuff works, it's not like most people are sitting on enough cash to be able to do anything. Right. How would, how would you do anything? I mean, companies wouldn't be able to buy from other companies cuz they're doing that electronically. Right? People wouldn't be able to go in those stores and buy from the stores. It would literally cripple everything. It would.
Jeff:Hey, how does this work? And now this is something I don't have to worry about, but banks, of course, I, I, all of them, I don't know, but they're F D I C insured. Yeah. Up to, this is the part I don't have to worry about. Isn't it like$250,000 now? I think so, yeah. So what happens if you have over that amount in a bank? How do you ensure your money?
Chris:You lose it and it's, and it, yeah, it's 250,000 I think, to an individual. So, okay. Like, so you're just outta luck. Yeah. I think if you had 25,000 in 10 different accounts, you're okay. But if you had more than that, then you'd lose it. So if you have more money than that, you need to have it in more than one bank.
Jeff:Okay. Well I was thinking about that with, uh, well, that one bank, uh, that ha handled a lot of Silicon Valley stuff was that last month that went under and then, yeah. Some other bank just went under that, was it Republic? Republic went under and Chase bought it, I think, but yeah. Yeah. I don't have to worry about that. I don't have, I don't have over$250,000 that I gotta worry about. Not a
Chris:concern. Why? So there were some pretty bad storms here the other day, and the thing that always gets me is, you know, they see all of this stuff on radar, but then they also say these things were reported by storm chasers. Yeah. I'm thinking, you know, for me, when the hail is coming, I'm going inside. Yeah. And when the tornadoes are coming, I'm taking cover. But then you got these people who are literally going into the middle of the storm. That is a different kind of person. Well,
Jeff:Different. Definitely. But how bright are they? Right? Because it just doesn't take much if you're in a tornado. Yeah. You're risking your life right there. But I like their videos.
Chris:Oh yeah. They're awesome to see. They're key in that way. Yeah. But I mean, those tornadoes, they can change course in a heartbeat. And you know, it looks like it's going away and well, here it comes. I know. And And hail, I mean, you can go from tiny hail to massive hail in a split second too.
Jeff:Breaking your windshield. Yeah. Yep. You ever
Chris:been in a tornado? Not in a tornado. I've had a tornado go over me when I was a little kid. I didn't see it, but I was in the house when it went over. And then several years ago, a tornado came within like. It was like four miles of where I was and I saw all the damage from it, which is frightening. I mean, you go and, and you see what that did, just literally wiped out a path. That's scary. But no, I've never actually been in one. I would like to see one for myself, like with my own eyes, just as long as I'm at a distance.
Jeff:Right. So that one, when you're a little kid, that might be the same one I'm thinking of. Was that in 1979? Is that when that was? Yep, that would be it. In Dallas. Yeah. Yeah. So I just, yeah, I barely remember that. I remember my mom freaking out listening to the radio about where it was spotted. Yeah. And then us running into the bedroom to get in the closet. Yeah. I
Chris:was in a, I was in a hall underneath a mattress.
Jeff:Well, why weren't you in school? Was that during the summer?
Chris:You know, I'm not sure exactly what, what time of the year it was. No, I think, no, it was after school. That's what
Jeff:it was. Okay. Late in the afternoon.
Chris:Okay. Yes. Yeah, because I remember my mom questioned getting me out of school and somebody was like, he's, he's safer at the school than he would be at home. You know, bigger building steel, all of that kind of stuff. But then school was over and so he went home and the storms picked up again. Yeah. Makes me think of Twister. Did you see that movie?
Jeff:I did. I hated it, but I saw it.
Chris:Yeah. It was, I mean, it has, it's a, you know, it's a Hollywood thing, but Right. There's enough realistic parts of, of how they're chasing them. You know? Yeah. And that they want to get in the middle of it. It's amazing.
Jeff:I could never stand Bill Paxton or Paxton, what was his name? Bill Paxton. Yeah, Paxton. I couldn't stand him really. He always came across as kind of dumb and I just didn't think he was a very good actor. That's true.
Chris:He did play some roles like that. Yeah. Well, he's dead now.
Jeff:I, yeah. Yeah. Well, I haven't seen anything with him in it in a while.
Chris:No. So
Jeff:he was in a really good movie, and I know you've seen this. It's, uh, it's got him and Billy Bob Thornton, and I can't remember the other one. I knew
Chris:you were gonna say that. Yep. Yeah. A simple
Jeff:plan. A simple plan. Yes. Oh, that's a good movie.
Chris:I liked that movie. It was, yeah, it was, uh, riveting. Yeah.
Jeff:So who was it? It was Bill Paxton. Billy Bob Thornton. And there was another guy.
Chris:Yes. And I can pic, I can picture him, but I, I don't know that I know his name. Maybe I would know it if I heard it, but I, yeah, maybe. I don't know either. I can see his face in my
Jeff:mind. Yeah. Oh, that's a, that's a really good movie. Yeah. Y'all go watch a simple plan. Billy Bob Thornton. Man, he's such a good actor. He played that so well. He
Chris:was really good in that. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like him and a sling blade. Oh yeah. That's another great one. Very different kind of person.
Jeff:If I were gonna make a list of things I don't care about King Charles Coronation would be really close to the top. Yeah. Have you watched any of it?
Chris:No, I haven't watched any of it. I've seen pictures, you know, and I, I've read a tiny bit on, on just what's come across because it was there. I don't have the interest in royal family like some people do. It's just never been a big deal to me either. Nope. The only thing that I would say that I think is kind of interesting, if that's even the right word, is just the level of custom and history and all of that that exists by itself. Yeah. And that's, you know, for example, looking at Queen Elizabeth and somebody who was queen for, what was it, 70 years or just over 70 years. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. And then, so I did see one thing about, uh, Charles is saying he is the longest monarch in waiting, as in, and that's because she had the throne for so long. Yeah. Yeah. He's the longest in history. It's like, well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, she was what, 23? Something like that when she became queen. Yeah.
Jeff:So I was always of the mindset and I'm like, you, I don't care one wi about it, uh, just whatever. But I was always of the mindset that, hello, like, why don't y'all just get rid of the monarchy? They have no political power anymore. Like, what is the point? Yeah. But then when we went to England, and holy hell, there's so much, and I, I knew there was a lot of history, but I didn't really get it like it is infused with everything in their history. And it's more just about pomp and circumstance now. But I can understand how you couldn't just upend that history. Yeah. So anyway, but yeah, I'm, I don't care about it. I know some people just get all wrapped up in it, but not
Chris:me. I don't know, maybe the mystery of it. Maybe that's part of it is kind of, yeah. You know, they're, this, the seclusion that they have, but then oh, they, they come out of, you know, come out in public and, I don't know, maybe, maybe that's it. Is is the, the lack of knowledge of it. How old is he? Do you know? He's 74. Okay. So, I mean, wow. Even, even if he lived like his mom, you know, basically to nearly a hundred, well, that's 25 years now. William, who would then be king? Um, he's 40, so Okay. Even 25 years from now, he'd be younger than his dad taking over his king. But you know, it's not gonna be 25 years.
Jeff:Right. Well, that shows you how much, I don't know. I couldn't remember their names. So there's William, but now that you mentioned, now there's Harry, right. And he's the younger one.
Chris:Harry's the younger one that's married to Megan Mark Markle. And they've like, oh, they're the ones who
Jeff:ditched the whole
Chris:thing. Yeah. Like they just, I was gonna say Amanda and I don't know if that was the right word, but Yeah, ditched. I liked that.
Jeff:Yeah. Gave a big royal fuck you.
Chris:Yep, exactly. Now he was there. Harry went there for the coronation. I saw that. And some of the pictures, I didn't know if he was gonna be there. Yeah. You think
Jeff:their family is somewhat normal or you think they're all fucked up? I think they're fucked up. I don't see how
Chris:you couldn't be. I don't either. I mean, there's nothing real compared to other people about it. I mean Right. They're, they're living off ungodly amounts of wealth. And having the seclusion that they do. And I mean there, there's got to be just completely abnormal lifestyle there.
Jeff:You think King Charles has ever had McDonald's
Chris:maybe as a novelty,
Jeff:like Right. This is what the peasants eat right
Chris:now. That's not to say I, I have seen a couple of interviews, I'll say that interviews like with, with William and not even a full interview, but just parts of it. He sounds like a nice guy. He sounds, if you know, if you can, if you can say that somebody is grounded Yeah. Who lives in the kind of situation that they do. Yeah. Maybe he is and I don't know anything. You know, there was a thing when, I can't remember how long ago it was when, when Harry and Megan Markle did they write their book or did interviews and stuff like that, and people said they were, you know, saying a bunch of negative stuff that wasn't true anyway, saying that, I don't know how bad it really is, but they were saying that it was so you can't imagine that it's very normal. Is she black? She's half black. I don't Oh, okay. Uh, I'm not sure who's who, if it was her mom or dad, but should we be talking about this? And she, she said something about that was a problem of her being accepted in the royal family. Yeah.
Jeff:Is she American?
Chris:She is, yeah. Well, I
Jeff:think so. Okay. See, it shows you how much, I don't know.
Chris:Uh, yeah, it says she's an American, so I started watching Suits a while back. What was that, a show that was on from 2011 to 2019? Well, I, I had just heard a lot about it. It's, I think the, the best way to describe it is it's kind of like, uh, uh, Gray's Anatomy or er, but it's in the legal field instead of the medical field. So, oh, okay. You're following them, you know, episode to episode through different legal, legal cases, legal suits and things like that. You get to know some things about their personal life, but I think it's interesting. It's kind of a. You do have to pay a lot of attention. There's a lot of dialogue. Mm-hmm. And the dialogue can be kind of complex sometimes to follow everything that they're saying about the cases that they're dealing with and everything. But it's a comedic dramedy, uh, comedic drama. Okay. I would say, um, for a kind of show. So you know it. Yeah. It's got its funny parts. It's got its dramatic parts. It's, anyway, bringing all of that up because Megan Markle was on there. That's like what she was known for prior to Oh, she's being part of the royal family. Yeah. She was an actress. I don't know if she did. I don't know if she was really known for anything before that, but that was the most recent thing. It's not why I started watching.
Jeff:Speaking of shows, So, I know you saw it. I saw it. We haven't really talked about it. It was a series, I think like 10 episodes about the murder in Wiley, Texas. Yeah, it had Jessica Beal in it. What was the name of that on Hulu? Can't remember it was Candy. Candy. Is this called Candy? Yes. I just thought of it.
Chris:I was, and I was thinking, um, A Killing In a Small Town was the name of that movie from 1990, right?
Jeff:Yeah. Okay. But
Chris:yes, that series was called Candy. Okay.
Jeff:So there's a new one on H B O Max. You need to check that out. Has it come out yet? Yeah. So they released the first three episodes at once and then for all the others they're releasing one every Thursday. So I'm, uh, Four episodes in now and there are only seven, so only three to go. It's really good. It's better than the Hulu series. I kind of got bored at some points with the Hulu series, but this one is, is good. Yeah, you need to check that
Chris:out. Okay. That one on Hulu, I enjoyed the one on Hulu, but I did see that there were parts of it that that stretched out a little too much. Yeah, they could have condensed it some or I don't know what you, you know, I saw that killing in a Small Town movie, which was from 1990 and the, they base that movie and candy and this new one all on the same book. Yeah. It was the, the, the people that wrote that, that were the ones that did all of the investigation. So they're all based on the same thing, but there were things in the movie that were not in candy and vice versa. So I, I enjoyed being able to see both of them and pick up different things that weren't covered in the other one. And that's kind of what I'm hoping about this new one, is that, yeah, there would be other things that come out that I've never
Jeff:heard. It's just, um, I, I think the, uh, the characters are better. Uh, the dialogue's better. I just find it more riveting than the other. That book is called, I think it's called Evidence of Love. And uh, I read that in like two days. It was really, really good. So real, everybody's looking for a good true crime book. Yeah. Evidence of love. And then watch this H B O Max mini-series. It's called Love and Death. That's the name of it. Uh, yeah, it's good.
Chris:Definitely
Jeff:have to check that out. It's a fascinating case. Hacking somebody 40 times with an ax like I'm in. Tell me more. Right. So I went on a bike ride earlier today. Yeah. And I was on a trail, and before you get on the trail, it has a warning watch where you step because of snakes. Uh oh. And so, yep. I'm just minding my business and look down and I see a snake. It was black, it was probably, I don't know, between three and four feet. Like this was not small. Yeah. And my son was right behind me. And it was one of those things where your brain is operating faster than your mouth. So I said Snake,
Chris:I felt,
Jeff:I felt like Frank Costan was Costanza with the silver dollar collection, silver dollar. But I was worried like, am I gonna run over it? Uh, and the first thing I was worried about is I went to the left of it. Mm-hmm. I wasn't going that fast cuz this trail is kind of, has a bunch of turns and so I kinda had to slow down so I wasn't going that fast, but I was worried like, can it actually lash out at me and try to get me, I think I was going too fast, but my first thought was, what if I ran over it and then it's gonna cause me to fall and then it's gonna know that I tried to kill it. Right. It's gonna come latch onto my face. That was pretty. Or just
Chris:wait for your son to come by.
Jeff:Yeah, right. Get the next one in line.
Chris:Yeah.
Jeff:Anyway, he scurried off into the, off the trail and into the woods and I don't ever wanna see him again. But that was pretty alarm alarming. And this is just after we talked about snakes. What was that? Two episodes
Chris:ago? I know. That's crazy. Well, and like I said, the very idea of coming across a snake in the wild just freaks me out. I'm fascinated by them as a whole. And in particular, you know, you go to the zoo or even a pet store, whatever. I like seeing them like that. It's cool to me. I'll hold them. Yeah. I'll hold a snake from a pet store or something like that. Mm-hmm. But seeing one in the wild that is different.
Jeff:All right. There you go. If you like this kind of stuff, Then we are your kind of people. This is your type of podcast and you should absolutely follow us on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on that way, every single Tuesday, you will get new episodes delivered to you automatically. While you are there, go ahead and rate us. We would be really, really happy if you'd give us five stars and while you're there, go ahead and write something. The way all of these apps work is if you write something, it makes it easier for people to discover the show. We have a website. It is Subpar Talks dot com. There you can find out more about me, about Chris. You can email us, you can leave us a voicemail. If you wanna give suggestions on topics we should cover in future episodes, absolutely do that as well. We are on social media on Twitter. We are at Subpar Talks on Facebook. We are Subpar Talks. If you wanna follow our personal Twitter accounts, we would welcome them as well. On there I am at@independentjeff.
Chris:And I am at Chris Bradford, tx,
Jeff:and we have other social media links on our website. You can check those out. And last, but never, ever least share Subpar Talks with your friends and family and colleagues and anybody else you encounter. Share it on social media because the more people we have listening to this show, the easier it is for us to get this content to you every single week. And there you go. You gonna go watch the coordination now? I don't
Chris:think so.
Jeff:Somebody'd have to pay me to watch it. Yeah,
Chris:and I think that'd be a pretty high price. Well, somebody wants to pay. Bring it on,
Jeff:right? Yeah. I'm not gonna turn it
Chris:down. All right,
Jeff:very good. That is another episode, and until next week, so long.